What’s the Score: How to Succeed in Correct Score Betting Markets

“What do you think the score will be?” That is the question that gets asked thousands of times up and down the country before a big football match.

How many times have you managed to correctly predict the score?

Unless you are some sort of time travelling wizard with the ability to predict future events, then we’re going to guess that the answer to that question is going to be pretty low. The truth is that predicting a win-draw-lose outcome of a football match can be tricky enough without going into guessing the exact amount of goals that each team is going to score. That said, as with most things that are difficult to predict in the world of betting, the rewards are there for the taking.

So, how exactly should you go about placing a bet on a correct score? Is there a way to predict the outcome of a football match or is it simply anyone’s guess?

What Are the Benefits of Correct Score Betting?

The advantages of correct score betting are plain to see; all you need to do is look at the odds. Take a Premier League football match in which there is a clear favourite to win, like Chelsea at home against Crystal Palace. The odds for a Chelsea victory are listed as 2/7, which will return a measly profit of £2.86 from a £10 bet. Ok, that might seem like a pretty certain way to guarantee that you end up will a bit of extra change in your pocket at the end of the day, but it’s not exactly going to change your life

Take a look at the correct score betting markets for this game and it is a very different picture:

Chelsea to win 1-0 at 5/1 = £50 profit from £10 bet.

Chelsea to win 2-0 at 9/2 = £45 profit from £10 bet.

Chelsea to win 2-1 at 8/1 = £80 profit from £10 bet.

Chelsea to win 3-0 at 13/2 = £65 profit from £10 bet.

Chelsea to win 3-1 at 11/1 = £110 profit from £10 bet.

Chelsea to win 3-2 at 33/1 = £330 profit from £10 bet.

As you can see, there are much bigger profit margins in play when you bring the correct score into the equation. And it’s not as if those scores are completely unthinkable outcomes of a football match, either. The trick is knowing which of the many possible correct score outcomes is most likely to occur.

How to Work Out the Correct Score

We’re not going to lie, predicting the correct score of every future football match is nigh on impossible. Even guessing the correct score of three games in a weekend is going to be pretty tricky. But with the right mixture of statistical astuteness, mathematical know-how and a knowledge of the game, then you might have a better chance than most of getting at least one correct score wager on the money.

Poisson Distribution: we wrote a whole article about this mathematical theory which was devised by a French mathematician in the 19th In short, the equation uses past data to determine the probability that a number of events will happen within a set period of time in the future. For example, how many goals will a home team score or concede in a football match. Apply the same working out with the away team and you will end up with probability percentages for every conceivable score outcome of a football match. It is important to use a large and up-to-date pool of stats when using this kind of stats based strategy.

Play the game you know: while making use of a mathematical equation like the Poisson distribution method is a good way to inform your correct score bets, it still won’t get the right result every time. This is where your own knowledge of the game comes into play. The goal scoring stats don’t take into account player injuries, managerial changes or even the weather. If football was played on paper alone, then we’d all be very rich punters!

Correct Score Betting Tips

Now that you know how to bet on correct score markets, you can begin to take a few punts on the weekend’s football action in the hope that some of your predictions come true. Here are some extra tips to consider:

Spread your bets: if you’re not certain enough to back one score, then why not bet on a couple of different scores? As you can see from the examples from the Chelsea game above, the majority of correct score odds return more than 4 times the value of the stake so spreading your bets could be a good way to add some insurance. The only problem is that you could end up losing even more money if the match turns out to be an unprecedented goal-fest.

Always back the favourite: The merits of correct score betting lies in the fact that you can garner longer odds from matches where there is just no value in backing the favourites. Therefore, it makes sense to only go down the correct score route when you bet with the favourites winning the game. By all means, you can back an underdog if you think that they have a chance of nicking it, but the odds should be decent enough in the match result markets so there is no need to make things even harder for yourself with adding the correct score into the mix.

Get edge of bookies in lower leagues: correct score betting gets potentially more profitable the further down the league system you go. Premier League fixtures may dominate the talking points of the sporting week with full coverage across television, radio and the newspapers and, as such, bookies spend extra man-hours making sure that the odds they offer are right on the money. This means that you might find it hard to get good value odds on correct score markets in the top leagues. So why not crunch the stats and become an expert on an obscure lower league? You might just get an edge of the bookies to find more valuable odds.

Go Over/Under for Safer Bets

This type of betting is best suited to advanced football punters – the type of bettors who get pleasure out of putting stats into maths equations and analysing every possible variable factor that could change the course of a football match. This takes both time and patience, things that not everyone has.

If you’re not keen on putting in the hours, then perhaps correct score betting isn’t for you. There is an alternative, however and it’s called the over/under markets. This betting options basically means that punters can bet on whether they think there will be more or less than a certain number of goals in a game. Like correct score betting, this tends to offer longer odds that are more attractive that simply wagering on who will win the match, without the need for so much number crunching.

Or course, like any wager you place on football, a good degree of consideration should be given to ensure that you have the best chance of success. Although you might not have to spend entire mornings putting numbers into a calculator to make a success of the over/under goals markets!